The Count of Monte Cristo

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for myself that I entreat your interference--I should grieve for him or
avenge him, but my poor brother had a wife, and were anything to happen
to me, the poor creature would perish from want, for my brother's pay
alone kept her. Pray, try and obtain a small government pension for
her.'

"'Every revolution has its catastrophes,' returned M. de Villefort;
'your brother has been the victim of this. It is a misfortune, and
government owes nothing to his family. If we are to judge by all the
vengeance that the followers of the usurper exercised on the partisans
of the king, when, in their turn, they were in power, your brother would
be to-day, in all probability, condemned to death. What has happened is
quite natural, and in conformity with the law of reprisals.'--'What,'
cried I, 'do you, a magistrate, speak thus to me?'--'All these Corsicans
are mad, on my honor,' replied M. de Villefort; 'they fancy that their
countryman is still emperor. You have mistaken the time, you should have
told me this two months ago, it is too late now. Go now, at once, or I